But what would replace the traditional exam — and whether it would be any different — remains unclear. The state can’t unilaterally decide to abolish standardized tests altogether, so a replacement must be found.

The next steps will be fraught with partisan politics, tough decisions about the high cost of state tests and confusion around new federal testing rules.

“I think what we need is a panel of experts to say either, the unlikely scenario, ‘ISTEP is great, let’s keep it,’” said Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma. “Or that another test has a better likelihood of accurately measuring success for students and giving the state adequate measures on student achievement.”

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When ESSA officially replaces the No Child Left Behind Act next year, states that were required to give certain kinds of tests every year — and were measured by how students performed — will have new powers to test kids in different ways.

But while it’s not yet clear what this new “flexibility” will allow, educators and state officials say they’re determined to find a better option.

“I just know people are very unhappy with the pass/fail approach that we have now,” said state Superintendent Glenda Ritz. “And I think that’s pretty universal.”

THE OPTIONS

Options on the table for a new test include changing the frequency of the exam — possibly replacing the single high-stakes, end-of-year assessment with several smaller tests throughout the year. Other options include joining a national testing consortium, using tests created for other states, or paying a premium to create an Indiana exam that somehow delivers valid information about student skills without the technical and scoring problems experienced by ISTEP.

The battles over Common Core were, in many ways, a precursor to the current political fight brewing over ISTEP. For the last several years, Indiana lawmakers have had a tendency to make big education changes in fairly short amounts of time. That has sometimes led to new complications. In this case, the state abandoned a controversial national test in favor of what became a problem-plagued local one. Now, lawmakers are fixing for another fight over how to deal with the fallout from their last decision.

“What we’re dealing with right now is a little bit of a self-inflicted wound,” said Indiana State Board of Education member Gordon Hendry. “We’re now having to react to some of the problems, the unintended consequences that have come about based on those decisions.”

The testing decisions made in the coming year will have serious implications for children across the state, but the debate is likely to occur against a backdrop of partisan bickering and finger-pointing over who’s at fault for the turmoil of last year’s exam — Ritz, the testing company, or lawmakers who put the whole system in place to begin with.

Educators and policymakers interested in seeing a new kind of test fall into several different camps.

In one corner are those who want to eliminate standardized tests and accountability systems in favor of a system with fewer stakes. That group, which mostly consists of educators and Democratic lawmakers, is unlikely to triumph in the coming testing battles because, even under the new ESSA, the federal government will still require annual tests attached to larger school accountability systems.

Plus, Pence and his allies in the GOP-controlled General Assembly have long records of supporting tough test-based accountability for schools, students and teachers. They’re not likely to go along with a lower-stakes test.

Another faction in the upcoming fight are those who see some merit in the current exam but want changes to the way it’s administered.

Others are critical of Ritz and her leadership of the Department of Education. Ritz, a Democrat, has frequently clashed with GOP leaders and now faces a Republican challenger for re-election in November. Some Republicans have tried to tie her to the unpopular test.

A third group is calling for a more measured response to recent testing problems. That group acknowledges that there’s room for improvement in the way the test is administered but cautions that the current ISTEP is still valid and important.

“It concerns me that we’re considering throwing out the baby with the bathwater,” said Hendry, who is in the third camp. “I don’t think just overreacting and just throwing (ISTEP) away and starting over is … the most prudent decision to make.”

THE RULES

No matter what lawmakers decide this year, Indiana still has hard-and-fast requirements for its testing system.

According to state law, “ISTEP” refers to a program of tests including any state, national or international test that children in grades 3-8, plus high school sophomores, must complete. For that to change, parts of current law would need to be repealed. Behning’s House Bill 1395, which passed the house last week, is an effort to do just that. It includes provisions that aim to kill ISTEP.

The state board is responsible for signing off on plans for ISTEP and reviewing the test to make sure it is statistically valid and reliable, according to state law, and Ritz and her education department are responsible for actually creating, administering and monitoring the test.

Indiana must test students each year from grades 3-8 in English and math, and for certain grades, science and social studies. That lines up with federal requirements, which still require statewide tests that capture student scores at one moment in time, known as a “summative exam,” much like ISTEP does now.

No matter what test the state ends up with, taxpayers will have to foot the bill — and if the state goes with a new state-owned test, that could mean a higher price tag.

The cheapest tests are those that already exist. The PARCC test, for example, which is also administered by Pearson, costs the states that use it about $24 per student, according to the consortium’s website. If Indiana were still in the consortium, taxpayers would have spent about $12 million last year for the 500,000 students who were tested. Instead, the state paid roughly twice that — $24 million — to CTB for its problem-plagued exam.

This year’s Pearson-made ISTEP will be somewhat cheaper — about $16 million per year — but could still cost more than PARCC, especially if districts opt for a paper version of the test.

That’s one reason why the possibility of signing on for a national test is still on the table. State laws approved in 2014 as part of a national backlash against the Common Core prohibit the adoption of standards or tests created solely by the federal government or by a group of states.

That would seem to eliminate the option of using the PARCC test or the test from its counterpart Common Core testing consortium, the Smarter Balanced Assessment.

Indiana could also save money by changing course on the question of owning its own test questions, regardless of who wins future testing contracts.

That would allow testmakers to legally re-use questions from the ISTEP on whatever exam replaces it. Owning its questions is one advantage Indiana has over states that are part of national testing consortia. If Indiana has stuck with PARCC, it would not own any of its questions right now.

THE TEST

The U.S. Department of Education will eventually pick up to seven states for an experiment to pioneer the development of new state exams.

Ritz has already said she might be interested in such a program. Behning is often at odds with Ritz on education policy matters, but the two share an interest in seeing Indiana at the forefront of new testing models.

Both Behning and Ritz have pointed to unusual new testing programs in New Hampshire and other states as possible options for Indiana. New Hampshire’s innovative system includes a pilot where students take a national test in certain grades and in the others, a locally designed assessment that shows whether students have mastered specific skills, known as “competency-based” learning. Individual districts determine what skills kids need to master on the local tests.

“There’s a lot of opportunities to look at a lot of different models,” Behning said.

But just because some states have changed their exams doesn’t mean it’s easy for others to follow suit.

It took “tons of work and resources in getting New Hampshire where they are,” Danielle Gonzales, assistant policy director for The Aspen Institute’s education program, told Chalkbeat earlier this year. “Frankly, it’s a significant challenge for other states to take that on.”

Ritz says she’s up for the challenge and has described a major overhaul of the state’s testing program that wouldn’t rely as heavily on one final, year-end test. She envisions a series of shorter tests that would track student progress throughout the year, followed by a final test that would take a “snapshot” of their skills.

“I’d like it to be student-centered and adaptable,” Ritz said. “I’d like to know where children do perform as well as how they grow over the course of the year.”

Behning worries a strategy like Ritz’s could result in even more testing, something educators have told him they definitely don’t want.

“I’m not saying that that’s out of the question, but I think you have to be very clear because these educators were telling me there’s too much testing going on,” Behning said.

Ritz doesn’t see it that way. To her, a series of tests that give faster feedback and measure actual skills would be more useful for teachers.

“I don’t view that as more testing,” Ritz said. “I view that as simplifying the system, making it all make sense.”

Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education for how to put elements from the new ESSA law in place is expected later this year, so lawmakers are still incredibly limited in what they can legislate for now.

If Behning’s bill actually makes it through the legislature and an expert panel is formed to study the test and the state’s accountability system, lawmakers have no obligation to act on any of its recommendations. But Bosma noted that the bill has very clear language setting 2017 as the last year for ISTEP. That sets it apart from earlier efforts, such as one last year that merely established a committee to study new options.

“The kicker on (House Bill 1395) is the repeal of ISTEP,” Bosma said. “The legislature has to come back and deal with the issue.”

Colorado’s plan was held up longer than any other state’s by a series of disagreements over the best way to measure student achievement, including how to count students who opt out of state assessments. In most of those disagreements, the federal view prevailed, leaving Colorado with two divergent accountability systems, one state and one federal.

“We wanted to stick to our Colorado principles,” said Pat Chapman, executive director of the federal programs unit in the Colorado Department of Education.

Colorado wanted to use its state accountability system developed in 2009 to meet federal requirements, but ultimately the two were not entirely compatible. The state accountability system is more likely to identify schools that are not serving a large share of their students, while the federal system flags schools that aren’t serving certain subgroups, like students who qualify for free- and reduced-price lunch, a proxy for poverty, or English language learners, even if their overall numbers look good.

“What we use the federal system for is to identify schools that need additional support and to get additional resources to those schools,” Chapman said.

Educational and civil rights advocates who have been involved in the development of the plan say that it’s improved in some ways, but they’re concerned that the existence of two accountability systems – or three in the case of districts like Denver that have their own school ratings – will lead to more confusion unless there’s a clear way of sharing information with parents.

Schools identified as “turnaround” or “priority improvement” status under state law won’t necessarily be flagged for improvement under ESSA, and vice versa.

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“Our concern with having two different systems is that there may be confusion among parents about which system actually tells them how their school and district is performing,” said Leslie Colwell of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a member of the Equity in Colorado Coalition.

And bilingual educators say the approved plan fails to address two key problems, the lack of assessments in students’ native language and inconsistent criteria for when students learning English keep receiving services or transition out.

The Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, which replaced No Child Left Behind in 2015, requires each state to submit a plan that lays out how it will measure student achievement and what it will do to improve performance among groups of students who aren’t meeting academic goals.

Without an approved plan, Colorado schools risked losing access to nearly $200 million in federal funds for children from low-income families, and other aid. ESSA also provides $10 million a year to Colorado schools that have been flagged as needing improvement.

Colorado has been a center of the “opt-out” movement of parents refusing to allow their children to be tested. In response, the State Board of Education forbid lowering a school’s quality rating if fewer than 95 percent of its students were tested. The U.S. Department of Education, meanwhile, insisted that Colorado treat students who don’t take the test as if they were not proficient, the lowest ranking. This became a key sticking point.

Under the approved plan, Colorado schools with high opt-out rates will need to come up with plans to test more of their students. This comes even as state lawmakers this year banned the use of rewards like pizza parties for students who take the tests. Instead, schools will have to make the case to parents and students that the tests are meaningful and important.

Two other key differences:

The federal government will rate schools based on four-year graduation rates, while Colorado lets schools use the best result from its four-, five-, six- or seven-year graduation rates.

The federal government will rate alternative high schools based on their graduation rate, while Colorado looks at completion rate, a broader measure that includes students who get a GED.

State education officials have embraced the “flexibility” offered by ESSA in comparison to No Child Left Behind, but during a panel discussion earlier this year, Alexandra Alonso of the Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy, and Research Organization, stressed that the new law needs to be understood as a piece of civil rights legislation.

“It’s not intended to create more autonomy for states,” Alonso said. “It’s intended to have more equitable outcomes for our students.”

In that regard, Colorado’s plan still needs work, said Jorge García, executive director of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education. There still isn’t a consistent enough standard for promoting students out of English acquisition programs, García said. Students languishing in those classes too long suffer, he said.

“It denies them access to electives,” he said. “It denies them access to the entire schedule of classes. It denies them access to the full content of the classes. They don’t take the classes that prepare them for college and a career. This particular high stakes decision is hurting a lot of our students.”

Colorado received wide praise for its work to reach out to community groups, advocates, and school districts as it developed its plan, and Colwell said community groups will continue to work with the Colorado Department of Education to shape implementation of the plan.

“I am incredibly thankful for the amount of time and effort that so many people put in to develop our state plan,” Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said in a press release. “Colorado has had ambitious education strategies in place. This plan maintains our strong education laws while working together with the federal law to support all students.”

In a press release announcing approval for Colorado’s plan, U.S. Department of Education officials highlighted several features that other states don’t have. Those include a “one-stop process” for schools to apply for services and grants tailored for their specific challenges, a coordinated grant management system, and training for teachers in all subject areas.

The board met Wednesday to continue hammering out the new process for calculating state grades, a draft of which was approved in January. But just as the meeting started, board member Byron Ernest suggested pausing process, aiming instead for a new A-F grading model for the 2019-20 school year at the earliest.

“I would like for us to take a step back and do some research,” Ernest said. Four of the state board members were absent, including state Superintendent Jennifer McCormick. The seven present board members quickly reached a consensus that they should postpone a decision on the A-F rules, though no official vote happened.

As it stands now, the state and federal grading methods for calculating school ratings have important differences. The federal grade calculation, for example, would include school attendance rates and language proficiency of English-learners, whereas the state calculation would mainly rely on state test scores and test score growth. Because Indiana’s calculation also excludes certain students that the federal plan includes, such as those receiving credit recovery services, the final ratings could differ significantly for the same school. Although state and federal accountability metrics have differed in the past, the differences going forward would be more significant.

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The differences ultimately add a lot of confusion to a state accountability system designed to be simpler to understand for teachers, parents, and the community.

Cari Whicker, a board member and principal, said the changes Indiana has made to testing and accountability have been exhausting and frustrating for schools.

“Either A-F accountability or testing has changed every year since 2011,” Whicker said. “That’s a lot for schools. What you consider tweaking is truly moving the target for people in the field.”

“That’s what I advocated for in January — wouldn’t it behoove us to take our time,” Hendry said.

In January, educators and education advocates came forward with concerns over the process for creating the new school grades, which they said was far too fast and not transparent. They also took issue with the substance of the state plan, which would have made test scores more important and limited how much test score improvement could have factored into high school grades.

It’s not yet clear exactly what changes the board wants to make in the state A-F grading model that haven’t already been discussed or considered. The Indiana Department of Education released its federal ESSA plan over the summer, and the board has had multiple opportunities to examine that plan and give feedback.